Walnut Baseball

This weekend, as I was just getting out of the shower to face the day, S4 came up to me, baseball glove in hand and said "Hey, Moma, wanna hit some balls with me?"

Now, S4 has THREE brothers, all older and much, much, much more athletic than me. He has a Daddy who is home and he is much, much, much more athletic than me. Let me stress this again...nearly anyone, anywhere, at anytime is much, much, much more athletic than me!

But I digress.

I told him I wasn't very good at baseball. "I know," he agreed solemnly, "That's why I'll only pitch you the easy ones."

Great vote of confidence from my four year old there!

I told him I had to finish getting dressed (literally was still in my bath towel) and then I slowly got around to putting in my contacts and a little mascara so I didn't look too frightful when my husband came in from the field in need of more coffee. Honestly, I was secretly hoping S4 would forget.

But he didn't. He followed me around, glove in hand. He even asked S3 to stand behind me and catch all the balls I missed.

Now my confidence was soaring.

But then I thought, hey, why not? Why not just try to hit a few?

I purposefully chose not to remember how I pitched him balls on Thursday and he got onto me for not throwing them at his bat.

So I bundled up and headed out. S4 was gleeful to say the least. He told me where to stand, how to stand and how to handle the big plastic black bat. Then he ran around the yard gathering balls up to throw at me.

By balls I mean walnuts.

Seriously.

You have seen our Walnut War. (And just so you know, S1 decided that he was going to have him against all his brothers, it really wasn't a gang up on the big brother sort of thing.) You know how we are, uh, blessed with these walnuts.

At our farm, fall is baseball season because we have an unlimited supply of baseballs.

S4 gathered up a huge pile and he started tossing them at me. I may have let a few surprised "eeks" as they came flying for me, but imagine S4's surprise when I hit one.

Yes, I hit a walnut being thrown at me with a big plastic black bat.

And then I hit another. S2, our most athletic child, came jogging out of the field where his garden is and his jaw nearly hit the ground. "Moma?" he asked. "YOU hit that walnut? I thought it was Daddy!"

S4 also could not believe it and it wasn't long before instead of me getting any to sort of hit, I was getting hit by the walnuts.

Walnuts can hurt, I found out. I don't know why the boys like those wars so much.

But all in all, it was fun. It was great seeing their reaction. I hit some pretty far! I missed a ton of them but considering I NEVER hit a ball, I hit walnuts rather well, I'd say!

So, hey, maybe you should get out there and try to play with your kiddos. I think you'll surprise yourself and them with some hidden talents you both didn't know you possessed.

I leave you with this video. Just to prove to you that we are surrounded by walnuts. Alas, I wish I had the video of me hitting the walnuts, but I was sort of too busy to video it. Here is S4 (with help from Jr) explaining how to throw a spit ball. Seriously.